Documentation

Everything you need to set up, configure, and get the most out of Kioku. From your first integration to advanced API usage.

Guides

Quick Start

Get up and running with Kioku in under 5 minutes. Create your first project and capture a decision.

Slack Integration

Connect your Slack workspace and automatically capture architectural discussions from channels.

GitHub Integration

Link repositories to import decisions from PR descriptions, review comments, and issues.

Semantic Search

Learn how to use natural language queries to find decisions by meaning, not just keywords.

Architecture Decision Records

Understand the ADR format — context, decision, reasoning, consequences, and alternatives.

Team Onboarding

Set up personalized onboarding paths so new engineers understand your architecture quickly.

Quick Start Guide

Follow these five steps to go from zero to your first captured decision in under 5 minutes.

Create Your Account

Sign up with your email at kioku.jishulabs.com/auth/signup. No credit card required for the free tier. You'll get instant access to the dashboard.

Create a Project

Navigate to the Dashboard and create a project. Give it a name, link your repository URL, and add a documentation URL for context. Projects help organize decisions by codebase or team.

Connect Integrations

Go to Integrations and connect Slack, GitHub, or both using one-click OAuth. Select which channels and repositories to monitor. Kioku will begin scanning for architectural discussions.

Capture Your First Decision

Use the "Remember" feature to manually capture a decision, or wait for Kioku to automatically detect one from your connected tools. Fill in the context, decision, reasoning, and consequences.

Search and Discover

Try searching in natural language — "Why did we choose this database?" — and see Kioku surface relevant decisions instantly with full context and participants.

Integrations

Kioku connects to the tools where your team already makes decisions. Each integration captures context automatically without changing your existing workflow.

Slack Integration

Connect your Slack workspace with one-click OAuth. Kioku monitors selected channels for architectural discussions and automatically captures them as decision context.

Setup Steps:

Navigate to Dashboard → Integrations
Click "Connect Slack" and authorize Kioku in your workspace
Select which channels to monitor (e.g., #architecture, #engineering, #tech-decisions)
Optionally exclude channels you don't want scanned
Kioku begins monitoring — decisions are captured within minutes

What Gets Captured:

Architectural discussion threads with full context
Technology comparison debates and final decisions
Trade-off analyses and reasoning
Participant names and timestamps
Links to related documents, PRs, or issues shared in the thread

Tip

Create a dedicated #adr-decisions channel and Kioku will automatically treat every message there as an architectural decision worth capturing.

GitHub Integration

Link your GitHub repositories and Kioku will automatically extract decisions from PR descriptions, review comments, and issue discussions. Critical context that usually gets buried in closed PRs is preserved forever.

Setup Steps:

Navigate to Dashboard → Integrations
Click "Connect GitHub" and install the Kioku GitHub App
Select which repositories to monitor
Choose whether to scan existing PRs or only new ones going forward
Kioku indexes PR descriptions, review comments, and linked issues

What Gets Captured:

PR descriptions that contain design rationale or architecture changes
Code review comments discussing trade-offs or alternatives
Issue discussions about technical approach
Commit messages referencing ADRs or design decisions
Links between PRs and the decisions they implement

Meeting Notes & Transcripts

Upload meeting transcripts or connect your recording platform. Kioku uses AI to parse transcripts and extract key technical decisions, action items, and the reasoning discussed.

Supported Formats:

Plain text transcripts (.txt)
Markdown meeting notes (.md)
JSON exports from Otter.ai, Fireflies, and similar tools
Manual paste from any meeting notes tool

Kioku identifies decision points in the transcript, extracts the context and reasoning, and creates draft ADRs that you can review and approve from the dashboard.

Semantic Search

Kioku's semantic search uses AI to understand the meaning of your query, not just match keywords. Ask questions in plain English and get the exact decisions you're looking for.

How Semantic Search Works

You type a natural language query

"Why did we choose PostgreSQL over MongoDB for the user service?"

Query is converted to a vector embedding

Using OpenAI's text-embedding model, your query becomes a high-dimensional vector that captures its semantic meaning.

Vector similarity search runs against your decisions

PostgreSQL with pgvector finds the decisions most semantically similar to your query, even if the exact words don't match.

Results ranked by relevance

Decisions are scored by semantic similarity, then enhanced with metadata filters like project, date range, and source.

Example Queries

"Why did we choose PostgreSQL over MongoDB?"

"What is our authentication strategy?"

"Who decided on the microservices architecture?"

"What are the trade-offs of our caching approach?"

"When did we deprecate the REST API?"

"What alternatives were considered for the message queue?"

Available Filters

Project

Scope search to a specific project or codebase

Source

Filter by Slack, GitHub, meeting notes, or manual entries

Status

Show only proposed, accepted, or deprecated decisions

Date Range

Narrow results to a specific time period

Architecture Decision Records

Kioku structures all captured decisions into the standard ADR format, a lightweight documentation pattern adopted by teams at Spotify, GitHub, and Thoughtworks. Each record contains the following fields:

Title

A clear, descriptive name for the decision (e.g., "Use PostgreSQL for primary database")

Status

Lifecycle stage: Proposed, Accepted, Deprecated, or Superseded by a newer ADR

Context

The problem or situation that prompted the decision — what forces are at play?

Decision

What was decided and what specific approach was chosen

Reasoning

Why this option was chosen over alternatives — the key arguments and evidence

Consequences

What becomes easier or harder as a result — both positive and negative trade-offs

Alternatives

Other options that were considered, with their respective pros and cons

Participants

Who was involved in making the decision and who approved it

ADR Lifecycle

ProposedAcceptedDeprecatedorSuperseded

Decisions flow from Proposed (under discussion) to Accepted (team agreed). Over time, decisions may become Deprecated (no longer relevant) or Superseded (replaced by a newer decision that links back to the original).

Team Onboarding

Kioku turns months of onboarding into weeks by giving new engineers a guided tour of the decisions that shaped your architecture. Instead of relying on tribal knowledge or outdated wikis, new team members get curated, searchable context from day one.

How Onboarding Paths Work

When a new engineer joins your team, Kioku generates a personalized onboarding path based on the projects they'll be working on. The path includes:

Foundational Decisions — The top 10-20 architectural decisions every engineer on the project should know (e.g., database choice, API design philosophy, deployment strategy).
Project-Specific Context — Decisions specific to the repos and services they'll touch, ordered from most to least impactful.
Recent Changes — Decisions made in the last 90 days that represent the current direction of the architecture.
Key People — Who made which decisions, so new engineers know who to ask for deeper context.

Setting Up Onboarding

Go to Dashboard > Onboarding

Access the onboarding configuration from your project dashboard.

Select the new engineer's projects

Choose which projects and repos the new team member will work on.

Review the generated path

Kioku auto-generates a reading list of the most important decisions. You can reorder, add, or remove items.

Share the onboarding link

Send the personalized onboarding path to the new engineer. They can work through it at their own pace and ask follow-up questions via search.

Why This Matters

Teams using Kioku for onboarding report reducing ramp-up time from 6 months to 3 weeks. New engineers stop asking "why did we build it this way?" because the answer is always one search away.

API Reference

Kioku provides a RESTful API for programmatic access to your decisions and projects. API access is available on Pro and Enterprise plans. All requests require an API key passed in the Authorization header.

Authentication

# Include your API key in all requests

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Generate API keys from Dashboard → Settings → API Keys. Keys are scoped to your organization and can be revoked at any time.

Base URL

https://kioku.jishulabs.com/api

Endpoints

GET/api/decisions

List all decisions with optional filters

Parameters: project_id, status, tags, page, limit

POST/api/decisions

Create a new architecture decision record

Parameters: project_id, title, status, context, decision, reasoning

GET/api/projects

List all projects in your organization

Parameters: page, limit

POST/api/projects

Create a new project

Parameters: name, description, repository_url

POST/api/search

Perform semantic search across decisions

Parameters: query, project_id, filters

GET/api/context

List context items linked to decisions

Parameters: decision_id, source, page, limit

GET/api/settings/export

Export all your data as JSON

Parameters: format (json, markdown)

DELETE/api/settings/delete-account

Delete your account and all data

Parameters: confirmation

Rate Limits

100

requests/min (Free)

1,000

requests/min (Pro)

Custom

requests/min (Enterprise)

All Systems Operational

System Status

Kioku is hosted on enterprise-grade infrastructure with 99.9% uptime. All services — API, search, integrations — are monitored 24/7.

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